Beyond the appearance of classical referents in the work of these feminist artists, perhaps the most prominent use of the classical by a postmodernist has been in the word pictures of Jean Michel Basquiat (1961-88). Like Twombly, Basquiat was interested in the incorporation of names and words for their graphic power, which he sometimes utilized instead of, or combined with, pictorial images. In 1982, he painted Speaks for Itself, a triptych that features the words ‘‘NERO, CARTHAGE, PUNIC WARS’’ and ‘‘ROME SACKED BY GOTHS’’ in block letters on its first panel, alluding to Nero, who fought Hannibal in the second Punic War during the third century bc. Basquiat continued to convey this military theme with gestural brush strokes, violent drips of paint, and bold, red graffiti. He moves forward in time to more violence, when the northern Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 ad. The middle panel treats the fourth century bc, when in ‘‘THE BATTLE OF PERSIA’’ Alexander the Great killed Darius III in the Battle of Gaugamela in Mesopotamia in 331 bc, a date that appears on the right-hand panel. Since Basquiat’s own life was cut so short, we cannot know if he would have continued such imagery as Twombly does, but his interest seems to have been more than trivial.
The name ‘‘Alexander the Great’’ also appears across the top of Basquiat’s All Colored Cast (Part II) of 1982 above the faux Roman numerals ‘‘MCLMVXXIIVI.’’ Both the image and the name ‘‘Alexander the Great’’ recur in False, which is one of the 32 untitled drawings (1982-3) of the Daros Suite in a Swiss Collection. False, boldly executed in black and red on a white ground, also features labeled linear drawings of Aphrodite, Pericles, a Greek Soldier, Romulus and Remus, and a ‘‘BARBARIAN INVADER’’ who ‘‘SEES ROME FOR THE FIRST TIME.’’ Other names, words, and phrases include Plato, Homer, Socrates, ‘‘PAX ROMANA,’’ ‘‘BRUTUS AS 1ST CONSUL,’’ and ‘‘ROME IS SACKED BY GOTHS.’’
Around the same time as Basquiat’s classical references, Francesco Clemente (born 1952), one of a group of Italian painters who in the late 1970s and early 1980s became known as the ‘‘Transavanguardia,’’ produced a self-portrait as a nude male striding figure carrying a model of the Pantheon in his arms, which he titled Perseverance (1981). Painting in a neo-expressionist, gestural style, Clemente had just come to live in New York from Italy, where he had known Twombly in Rome, after having moved there to study architecture. Clemente described this canvas:
The first night I slept in the studio in New York, I had a dream where shit was raining from the sky. This painting came after that dream, with the Pantheon sort of protecting me from this rain of shit. What that means, I don’t know. One should remember that downtown New York was a city of ruins back then. ...It was an archaeological site with the Roman gods still walking around. (Adams 2003)
Since Clemente would collaborate with Basquiat in 1984, it is interesting that he, too, occasionally mined the ancient world for some of his imagery.
Unlike so many ofthese artists who engage briefly with classical themes, Andrea Eis (born 1952) trained as a classical scholar. When she abandoned scholarship for the visual arts, she kept her passion for classical civilization, finding her themes there. She works in photography and creates installations. For example, she made an installation about the conflict between Antigone and Kreon called Antigone’s Cave, No. 2 (1990), questioning ‘‘the conflict of personal and ethical boundaries and governmental authority.’’ She expressed authority and social order in architecturally controlled pathways, which she created through a ‘‘ritual corridor’’ made of pairs of fluted wooden columns, each pair progressively taller, through which the viewer walked. At the end of the corridor, a sharply lit photograph of a woman’s hands twisting in tension and frustration, scaled much larger than life, confronted the viewer. Eis created another large-scale installation, Labyrinth for Theseus and Ariadne (2000),
Figure 25.10a Antigone’s cave, No. 2 by Andrea Eis. Photo © Andrea Eis
Figure 25.10b Antigone’s Cave, No. 2 by Andrea Eis Photo © Andrea Eis
In which she ‘‘returns the path to Theseus,’’ but ‘‘gives Ariadne the final word.’’ This piece involves translucent fabric with a photograph dyed into it; it is both fragile like the past and suggestive of a labyrinth. Her goal is to use articulations of space combined with manipulations of images and texts to create metaphorical connections to the insights of ancient myths. Eis has written, ‘‘With our own society’s myths becoming increasingly hollow, perhaps exploring the Greek myths can provoke a reevaluation of what we believe, and why’’ (Eis 1993: 3).
While interest in the classical never completely disappears, certain periods and particular artists find innovative uses for the familiar forms, names, and characters. As we have seen, even an arch-modernist like Le Corbusier appreciated classical architecture. While we should not expect Alexander the Great to figure in the work of an artist inspired by graffiti such as Basquiat’s, we should not be surprised. Nor should the fascination with the classics among feminist artists seem unlikely. For they were not rebelling against Praxiteles or Lysippos, but against the domination of modernist formalism with its suppression of content. For all of the artists who want to draw upon rich cultural traditions, classical forms and literature offer a rich and readily available body of sources.
A Companion to the Classical Tradition Edited by Craig W. Kallendorf Copyright © 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
World History
